There You Are
by Weiila
Summary: It's the time of the year for these kinds of stories, isn't it? So, what could possibly scare a brave man such as you, hero? Something that is outside your own mind, or inside?


_Just a bit of Jak and Daxter Halloween candy._ _Muhahahaha…_

_Written for Animon, based on her "some mad Erol sketch..." picture on deviantArt (can be found in her scraps section). _

_I own none of the characters, no money was made from the writing of this. Enjoy!_

There You Are

He didn't know where he was.

_you_

Rain fell from the grey sky, wrung through by clouds looking more like dirty clods of soap than anything else. The clouds never looked like that back home.

But he couldn't really remember what "home" had been like. He only knew that whatever this was, it was wrong.

A sudden wind made him shudder, soaked as he was – that was wrong too. It had been warm, and bright. This place was illuminated, and yet he could not make out a single thing that made sense. The light came in distant bubbles, unmoving and prickling. Within them, there were sharp outlines of something, going from one side of the light circles and disappearing out the other.

_where_

He hesitated, unsure where he could move to in this blank darkness, unsure if standing still was worse than taking a step. There were things all around him, jagged outlines of something – maybe a stair below his feet, but he couldn't be sure. Couldn't make it out. When he wrapped his arms around himself, he noticed how dark the raindrops were on his skin. Making him seem deathly pale.

Was he dead?

Had he ever been alive?

Something sparkled again in the back of his head, a flutter of blue skies and warm sand. But before he could grasp it, it disappeared into the dark rain and faded.

_are_

He closed his eyes momentarily, trying to understand.

Nothing. There was nothing to find, no past and no present.

When he looked up, the light made a little more sense. It flared further than its basic pools now, reflected in the black rain that coated everything. Swinging upwards through the dark, cold lines upon lines, shadows and charts. He could at least see where it ended and the sky began, now, far up high. A huge oval spread out above him, holding up the clouds.

He knew then, that he was locked in.

_where_

A primal fear tore at his senses, a dark memory twisting to break free. He recoiled, and his foot met the ground with a hard clatter.

He was left breathing heavily, crouching like he wanted to cave in on himself to hide. Whatever it was that moved in his head, it had to be worse than anything else in this huge cage.

If he remained where he was, looking at the sky, it would break out and claim him. He stepped forwards, too quickly, and the world spun. A couple more steps, downwards, and he caught himself on an ice cold iron railing. The chill burnt and he let go quickly, running his gaze over the metal. It was a slanting railing, running downwards and glowing in the watery reflection of light. Now, he could make out the steps of the stair before him.

Beside him, dark, empty seats stretched out in row upon row, disappearing into obscurity. The wood in the simple chairs was worn and cracked, looking more soaked than he felt.

_you_

He gazed downwards, towards the faintly visible bottom. The stairs led straight down, and he knew he didn't want to be there.

But the twisting thing was above and right where he was. He had to go somewhere.

His feet felt like lead, heavier for every step he took.

He wouldn't be able to go back up.

_are_

The obscurity grew a little clearer when he staggered to the bottom, past a broken wall. The ground was odd here, not smooth like it had been on the stair. It prickled the soles of his feet, uneven and hard. Painted white lines ran over it, following it from where it started and wherever it took off in the dusk – he couldn't tell. The lines cut it up, forming… roads, tracks?

He knew that he should know what it was, but that memory was sluggish, unmoving.

Puddles of black water formed voids of nothingness and flashing reflections, shifting when he moved again.

_where_

There was something else.

He knew of it before he even saw it, a disturbance in the darkness. A jumbled, unmoving mess of rounded outlines, unfamiliar against all the sharp ones, not far to his left.

He didn't want to go there.

Yet he did anyway, stepping forwards, unwilling, drawn, forced. He wasn't allowed not to.

_where_

Large containers of some kind, strewn across the ground as if a giant hand thrown them about. A couple of them cracked, empty. He thought that the black rain must have been contained within.

Drops of water slithered down the barrels' swelling forms, across worn markings and burn marks.

Something moved.

_are_

He wanted to recoil, like from the twisting memory – but this was stronger, it had called him here and wouldn't let go now.

A pale shape appeared behind a fallen barrel first, crawling blindly on several long legs. He thought it was a spider at first, silently begging it to. But it had five legs, and they weren't legs.

Fingers. A hand.

It pressed down against the ground, straining to pull the arm behind it. A wet scraping, something moved, something bigger.

He was moved even closer, shoved by some invisible force, almost stumbling onto his knees before the nightmare.

_you_

Torn flesh littered the ground behind it, spiraling and twisting like worms among strips of ripped cloth. Only one hand dragged the body on, towards him, the other was gone. A broken bone poked out of the remaining stump, blood flowing around it and down in the black rain.

One eye was gone too, an empty socket – but it stared up, as filled with hatred as its remaining twin. Blood flowed from that too, not like tears but rivers, filling up the grey tattoos and slicking down the disheveled, orange hair.

It held itself up impossibly, creaking, when the hand left the ground, reaching for him.

_THERE YOU ARE_

-

It were those dreams that sent him bolting straight up, choking on a scream. The dreams that had Daxter spending half hours just trying to fuss him into settling back down and close his eyes again. But he never slept after those dreams, lying awake and listening to the squeaky snores rising from the small, fuzzy body curled up on his chest.

What was inside of his head could not hurt him as much as what was outside. However, things like that doesn't matter in the middle of the night.


End file.
